Having been diagnosed with diabetes last week, I REALLY feel I'm stuck firmly in the middle between insurance companies, health professionals and pharmaceutical companies. There's a defining scale for diabetes called the a1c scale. Your blood is tested and an average of the past 3 months (which is the time that red blood cells tend to live) is given a number. Because sugar "sticks" to these cells, it gives an idea how much sugar has been around for those past 3 months. Labs differ but most say the normal range is about 4-5.9 (the points are important.) Mine was 6.6! So, let's change my diet by reducing sugars and carbs and TAKE A DRUG. Of course, let's immediately prescribe something. I sometimes think that doctors have a quota of prescriptions to write just like policeman have their quota of tickets. Most drugs have some kind of side affect. Metformin affects my back side. Old Faithful has nothing on me the past week! Also, when I went in for my BP check and had blood work too, I felt fine......not so much this week. So, I have decided, on the heels of a persuasive chat with my health care office, that I will try to cut sweets (with the exception of special occasions and 10:00 p.m.), reduce carbs while still eating as usual and add lunch to my daily routine.
I did get a glucose test kit yesterday. Random glucose testing in the normal range is 70-125. Last night before dinner I was 65....until I turned the meter right side up and realized it was a good 95. This morning before breakfast, I was 119. I am now taking the drug with supper and skipping the breakfast dose. So far, so good and it will last twice as long.... Nothing gets past me.
Now for the stuck in the middle dilemma. My a1c # was 6.6. My health care provider said that was in the diabetic range and we needed to add drugs. My pharmacist said she really believed that 7 was the start for drugs and believed that diet and exercise could alleviate the need.. Wait a minute, who's the drug pusher here? I realize that everyone's health issues are totally exclusive and should be treated differently due to lifestyle but if you were on the lesser end of the scale, wouldn't it seem prudent to begin with changes that didn't include medications that might alter other factors in your body like the immediate evacuation of everything that went in the top rapidly coming out the bottom. Just sayin'
Now, I personally, have dilemma #2 ( and I use the term loosely....v-e-r-y loosely.) I have quite a bit of my stock portfolio sitting in pharmeceutical companies. I want them to make money. They do so by selling drugs.....................to people like me who really aren't sure if they actually need them. A real Catch-22!
Education is the key I believe. I've tried to read all that's available and learn all I can about this silent disease...What I've ended up doing is reading 2-3 articles about the same issue and then believing what facts are the same.... Scales differ, numbers differ, diagnoses differ, scripts differ and so on... So when I find that 3 or more agree on something, that's my norm. I can do this but many can't and don't. They take everything a health care provider says as gospel. I'm trying to find my own path...right now, it's eating regularly, a bit of exercise (which is more than none,) cutting back to maybe one sweet a day and taking the shit pill only once a day. I'm hoping strongly that my stocks will still be valuable and I'm looking into investing in PG...they make Charmin:-)
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